Ugly, garish and anachronistic, like a small mean child playing with matches, this umpteenth iteration of the classic tale is completely lacking in anything we expect from a Robin Hood story: There’s no fun, no romance, no virtue. There is only shiftless rich kid Lord Robin of Loxley (a charmless Taron Egerton) reluctantly playing vigilante in order to impress wannabe world-changer Marian (Eve Hewson). If the visual and cultural “aesthetics” are bizarre—this looks like it’s taking place in Epcot Center—then its ideas about politics are even worse. In this ridiculous pantomime of the medieval world, peasants can aspire to “politics,” but the only rich, powerful men enriching themselves at the expense of ordinary working folk are cartoonish villains. (Ben Mendelsohn, as the Sheriff of Nottingham, is rendered unwatchable; that’s how terrible this movie is.) The action sequences are incoherent. The attempt to gin up “redistribution of wealth” as a catchphrase in one notable lowlight of the script, though there’s also a lot of jaw-droppingly awful on-the-nose discussions of politics and monologuing about evil plans. This movie should be outlawed, banished to the woods forever.
ByMaryAnn Johanson